> SpaceTime database is built on a unique, multidimensional data index that automatically adapts to mutable and possibly highly skewed data distribution (which is usually the case with data coming from moving objects). There is one single multi-columnar index which indexes all associated columns of records at once. There are no secondary indices!
> The physical model intertwines index and record data – as a consequence, records that are logically close (based on id, position and timestamp) are at the same time also physically close. In turn, this maximizes the throughput of disk reads.
> The main ideas for inventing SpaceTime index came from several inspiring scientific papers. It is similar to the kd-tree family of indices, but with two major improvements: first, the index tree in SpaceTime is built using the bottom-up approach (as opposed to the top-down kd-tree construction) and second, the process of index creation adapts to particular space-time distribution of data. Kd-trees work well on a large scale only with static datasets; our bottom-up approach overcomes this.
Can you provide links to the scientific papers that were mentioned?
Are there any plans to publish a more detailed description of SpaceTime's index data structure and algorithm?